NATIONS must fight the greed and brutal disregard for human rights which underpin the worldwide trafficking in children and women, most often for sexual exploitation, according to United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) Executive Director Carol Bellamy.

Internationally, there is no consensus on the term “trafficking”. In 1994, the United Nations General Assembly came near to a comprehensive definition in its stipulation that “trafficking” is the “illicit and clandestine movement of persons across national and international borders, largely from developing countries and some countries with economies in transition, with the end goal of forcing women and girl children into sexually or economically oppressive and exploitative situations for the profit of recruiters, traffickers, crime syndicates, as well as other illegal activities related to trafficking, such as forced domestic labour, false marriages, clandestine employment and false adoption.”

In regard to Vietnam, the situation of trafficking of women and children within and from the country relates to three areas. First, there is trafficking from the northern part of Vietnam to China for marriage andother reasons. Second, there is trafficking from the southern part to Cambodia and subsequently to Thailand mainly for sexual purposes.

The study done by the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office (PDH) in Guatemala reflects the alarming situation of hundreds of girls who are forced to prostitute themselves in nightclubs, said the head of the PDH’s Childrens Defense Office, Marilys de Estrada.

The report was commissioned by the Inter-American Children’s Institute (IACI). It is part of a wider research project at IACI on sexual exploitation of children which has been undertaken in ten countries in Latin America and the Caribbean Region to explore the responses of governments and non-governmental organisations and to generate recommendations for effective handling of the issues.

DAVAO CITY – Only few of those accused of child abuse and sex exploitation get convicted even as the reporting of these cases has improved the past years, children’s rights advocates here said.

Liza Degoria, head of the city government-funded Balay Dangupan. A center for abused and sexually-exploited children, said of the 175 cases of rape, incest and acts of lasciviousness that were filed in court from 1996 t last year, only 16 had convictions.